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A New Leader For The Libertarian Party.

The Acceptance speech of Andrew Withers – the new Leader of the Libertarian Party.

I would like to thank the Party for the confidence that it has shown in electing me as the unopposed candidate.

I am proud to lead this dedicated band of Libertarians who have formed into a party despite the difficulties inherent in seizing office under the present benighted system called Parliamentary Democracy.

We are joined together because we believe in the Libertarian philosophy.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down because Stalinism and Communism had had its day and people wanted freedom; in the UK, the banking crisis and mountain of public debt signals the end of bureaucratic socialism and public and private debt as a way of life.

Now should be the age of Libertarianism, but it will be a long fight – the vested interests of the three statist parties wishes to maintain the status quo.

Labour only narrowly lost the election even with the current corrupt voting system. The Coalition will not last indefinitely, and unless things change dramatically the Social Democrats will leave the warm, crumpled bed of David Cameron to lie on the soiled Labour sheets, breaking promises as they go.

I am a Constitutionalist; I believe that our individual voices are worthless without a Constitution to enforce our rights; we have no individual recognition in Law.

The Treasury is bare, so we are to be taxed out of recession; yet we are still fighting foreign wars and we must give Ireland £7 Billion to save a Euro zone we are no part of.

Did anybody consult you? Do you approve? How do they get away with this? They do so because the State has the monopoly of violence – we are all frightened of the State, whereas the State should be frightened of us, the electorate.

The only legitimate function of the State is Defence of a free country.

Iraq and Afghanistan is a stain on our country. Our troops are badly equipped, badly paid and neglected in old age and injury. Politicians love being associated with the Military, it makes them look hard.

De Menezes was another stain on our International reputation; increasingly our civilian police forces are playing more to the Force and less to the Civilian part of their rubric.

The Libertarian Party must oppose both nationally and locally. We are small, very small, but history will show that we kept fanning the flames of classical Liberalism during a seventy year reign of bureaucratic socialism.

Libertarianism needs rebranding in the UK, the Stalinist left call us right wing; we are neither of the left or the right. David Nolan who tragically died last week put us on a different axis – that of Liberty to Authoritarianism.

We despise the big State in favour of minimal government that is local and accountable.

We have the obscenity of so called Anarchists taking part in violent demonstrations in favour of large state hand outs. These are not Anarchists; they are simple leftist thugs demanding by violence what they cannot achieve by the ballot box.

The Media, quite illogically to those of us who understand the true nature of Libertarianism, refer to Libertarian/Anarchists, as though we are one and the same. We are not. Our first challenge is thus to establish our philosophy clearly in the public mind – we cannot rely on the main stream media to do this for us. The blogosphere is our route to do this, and I call on all Libertarians to use the Blogosphere to help me inform and reshape the perception of Libertarianism at every opportunity.

It is with regret that I cannot take up the post until we have resolved the extraordinary decision by the Secretary of State, Dr Vince Cable, made on the 12th November 2010 that he objects to me being Party Leader, Treasurer or even Teaboy in the Libertarian Party.

I was instructed by a District Judge to list all organisations in the UK, in America, in South Africa, and in France that I am an executive member of, both companies and non-profitable organisations. I did so.

The Secretary of State objected to my taking part in any of the listed organisations. In his eyes I am unfit to do so without supervision from his department. The Secretary of State was given until 4pm yesterday, via his solicitors, Osborne Clarke, to withdraw his objection to my acting on behalf of the Libertarian Party from the Bristol District Registry. His own senior Counsel and my Counsel, who has kindly volunteered his time on behalf of the Party, are agreed that he has no powers in Law over the Libertarian Party.

I have to inform you no such undertaking has been received.

However, yesterday, I did receive a letter from Osborne Clarke requesting that I withdraw the Libertarian Party from the list that the court holds. In plain English, they do not want to be seen to resile from their objection – they want me to remove it from the list so that they do not have to back down in public.

Liam Fox MP, my local MP has asked to be kept informed of all developments following his attempts to get Mandelson and now Vince Cable to drop this sorry saga after nearly five years.

The District Judge ordered a telephone conference to be heard on Dec 3rd to settle the issues at dispute, mindful of the time and expense that I have been put to in physically attending the many hearings. Counsel for the Secretary of State objected to the telephone conference call, on the grounds that it was ‘inappropriate’.

As leader of a party that believes in the supremacy of the rule of law, I shall await the directions of the Court on December 3rd, and look forward to hearing the Secretary of State’s Counsel explaining to the Court the reasons why – on grounds of national security, public safety or in the interests of democracy – he should seek to overturn the will of the Libertarian Party members and infringe Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

I hate joining things, but it’s becoming increasing obvious that I must consider joining the Libertarian Party. Regardless of what Grouch Marx said! People like this deserve actual support, not just applause.

We don’t just need members, but also volunteers to help organise events, produce leaflets, hand out leaflets, help do up the website. lobby media, lobby government or anything that will advance liberty forward. We need more than people joining, paying £15 and doing nothing else.

Or… “yeah, get lost new member, we don’t need you.” That attitude is not a sensible one.

New members is all that you/we need. I don’t say that facetiously. Use the salesman’s credo: if I get a sale from every hundred doors I knock on, then I must knock on one hundred doors.

Most members will simply sign up, and pay their fee. (I am one of them). Of them a certain percentage will contribute time as well. Therefore the bigger the membership, the bigger in absolute numbers will that constant percentage represent.

Turning people away because they don’t volunteer is not the way.

All should be welcome. Live with the fact that different people will contribute to lesser or greater extents. You also don’t know that next week’s volunteer won’t be last week’s “join-only”. If you discourage their membership, they will be neither.

Well, I was unsure about that answer, too! But I decided that he probably didn’t mean it that way. It’s difficult to read tone in text, so I do favour smileys, even if they seem to be a bit naff these days.

Even apart from the subscription, the party’s credibility is somewhat dependant on membership numbers, surely?